Developing the Pronunciation Skills of Students of Medicine

This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effects of a suggested pronunciation programme on developing the English pronunciation skills of students of the faculty of medicine. Exploring the specific needs of those students, it was found that the nature of their studies involves much use of the English language in its spoken mode. It was also found that they experienced some pronunciation difficulties that rendered their speech unintelligible. Accordingly, a pronunciation programme was designed and tried out with a group of medicine students which comprised randomly chosen seventy students, enrolled in the first year of the faculty of medicine in Sohag. The programme consisted of five main units, focusing on five major areas of English pronunciation skills, namely, consonant sounds, vowel sounds, diphthong sounds, stress, and intonation. A t-test value of 67.07 revealed highly significant differences between the mean scores of the subjects on the pre-test, post-test comparison favouring the post-test. Blake's modified gain ratio indicated the effectiveness of the suggested programme in developing the students' English pronunciation skills.